What does the word monopoly mean?
Answer:
The word monopoly means "sole selling rights." That is, the holder of a monopoly for a product or a service is the only one allowed to sell it.
By extension, a monopoly is when a company gains control both horizontal and vertical control over an industry. That is to say the company has control over production and distribution of a general (non copyright) product.
A monopoly is when a company controls all of the resources for one service, for example if one company bought all of the companies that make pipes then hiked the prices up to something astronomically high, that is a monopoly because there is no competition and it is illegal.